Canon BJ-200e LPT1 port problem on Win95

I have a black and white BJ-200E canon printer that I got couple of years back with win 3.1 drivers. Now I have a win95 toshiba laptop that I want to use it with. I have downloaded latest canon drivers and installed it on my pc.
However, I keep getting
'cannot access port LPT1: port might already be in use by another program, try quitting other programs and try again'.
There is no other printer using that device. There are no IRQ conflicts. Any help would be appreciated.
I should add that when I connect the printer to LPT1 and boot the pc, the error light comes on on the printer as the laptop boots up.

Are you 100% sure that no other program is using the LPT1: port? There are many things that might be grabbing it like a SCSI driver for a parallel-port SCSI type device, a scanner driver, another printer driver (like ones from HP) that is polling the port all the time.

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brahatswingAuthor Commented: 1998-02-05

I am not 100% sure if no other device is using the LPT port. I do have a iomega jaz drive connected through a SCSI PCMCIA card (Adaptec). I looked at the IRQs and there was no conflict. But is there a way I could find out if it or anyother device is trying to grab the LPT1 port? I know it is not another printer since I've deleted all other printers from the printer menu.
-s

One thing to try too would be using another centronics cable to link to your printer : if the error lights come up at boot-time, maybe your cable is simply bad. Best solution would be to borrow one from a friend or colleague ...

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1) I haven't tried another printer on that port - since I use the network printer for other uses and not the LPT port. That is a good idea, I'll try to find another printer to hook this up to.

2) I am using the latest driver for BJ200-E from Canon (downloaded from the web site): Version 3.93E for wind95. I use the printer with my win3.1 PC and it works perfectly well. It is just the laptop (with win95) that is creating problems. So I don't think it is the cable either.

The fact that the error light comes on when I boot my laptop, might have something to do with this.

-S

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agustCommented: 1998-02-13

does the cannon driver has a file that can disable the bidirectional option?
if it has try disable this option.

If the error light comes on when you turn it on. That is a major red flag there.

Can you print to any printers using this laptop? (using the lpt port). Have you used this same cable? Try another printer, and print to it from this laptop using the same cable. If you duplicate the problem, replace the cable.
If problem still persists, we can focus on the lapotp.

you've changed the driver of the printer port to ECP,
but in Win95.
You have to change to ECP in the bios setup.
Then, when you restart Win95, it will automatically detect
the new ECP port.

Try another think:
Boot in MS-DOS mode, and try to print anything, for example:
DIR >lpt1
if it works in MS-DOS mode, the only problem is to
change the setup type printer port, or to reinstall Win95.

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brahatswingAuthor Commented: 1998-03-04

I loaded the drivers on a different laptap running win95 and the printer worked just fine. So it is my port settings that are an issue.
I want to go back to a comment by jhance earlier that asked about another device hogging the port: I replied to that, and I should emphasize that I DO have an Iomega Jazz drive with a scsi PCMCIA card as an attachement to my laptop. The other working laptop did not have the Jazz driver installed.
Is that a problem? Should I be asking Iomega? thanks
-s

Have you solved your problem yet?
Have you successfully been able to get your laptop to print?

What is currently happening, haven't heard from you for a few days.

jr

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brahatswingAuthor Commented: 1998-03-12

I tried 'adamgg's suggestion and it WORKED! So the printing works from the DOS mode. What do I need to do to make it work from windows? Does this confirm that my IOMEGA driver is messing things up with the parallel port?
thanks
-s

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